South West Asia and North Africa, there are historical records of women’s cinema since the 1920s. However, a lack of state funding for archival projects, as well as factors such as conflict and war, mean that we often watch these films through reading about them. The films themselves are inaccessible, or more often damaged or lost.
Feminist history is subversive, and often excluded from mainstream historiographies. Since the 1970s, many women have made films about archiving practice, or their own cultural histories which have been made absent from popular imagination. In more recent times, digital technology has become a mode of reconstructing stories in the absence of archival material, as well as a tool to undertake more ambitious restoration projects.
This film series includes a cult-classic from the archives, an essay film exploring the nature of archiving, and three experiments in transmission; celluloid, CGI and the mosalsalat. They are examples of imagining otherwise, in a region where feminist histories remain on the margins.
— Róisín Tapponi
Curated by Róisín Tapponi, the Founder of Habibi Collective, SHASHA Movies, ART WORK Magazine, and Independent Iraqi Film Festival (IIFF).
Co-presented by ArteEast and Anthology Film Archives, this series is part of the legacy program “Unpacking the ArteArchive,” which preserves and presents over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. In addition to the in-person, theatrical screenings at Anthology, the series will be presented on artearchive.org from February 4 -13.
Online Film Program:
THE NOUBA WOMEN OF MOUNT CHENOUA, Assia Djebar, Algeria,1977, 115 min
GHARIBA, Meriem Bennani, Morocco/U.S., 2017, 19 min
A FEELING GREATER THAN LOVE, Mary Jirmanus Saba, Lebanon, 2017, 99 min
KHTOBTOGONE, Sara Sadik, France, 2021, 16 min
ARCHIVE FEVER: WOMEN’S CINEMA FROM SOUTH-WEST ASIA AND NORTH AFRICA will also be screening onsite at Anthology Film Archive (NYC):
- Assia Djebar
- THE NOUBA WOMEN OF MOUNT CHENOUA
- February 4 at 7:30 PM
- ARCHIVE FEVER: SHORT FILM PROGRAM
- February 7 at 7:30 PM
- Mary Jirmanus Saba
- A FEELING GREATER THAN LOVE
- February 9 at 7:30 PM
For more info go to www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
GHARIBA, Meriem Bennani, Morocco/U.S., 2017, 19 min
Arabic with English subtitles
A playful and moving portrait of some women in Morocco. Evoking reality television, home video, and ethnographic film, its visual language is at once intimate and whimsical, with the director’s digital manipulations by turns amplifying and undermining her subjects’ self-presentations. Bennani’s women discuss love and romance, dating and friendship, loneliness and community, all set against the terror of aging.
Bio: Meriem Bennani (b. 1988 in Rabat, Morocco) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Juxtaposing and mixing the language of reality TV, documentaries, phone footage, animation, and high production aesthetics, she explores the potential of storytelling while amplifying reality through a strategy of magical realism and humour. She has been developing a shape-shifting practice of films, sculptures and immersive installations, composed with a subtle agility to question our contemporary society and its fractured identities, gender issues and ubiquitous dominance of digital technologies. Bennani’s work has been shown at the Whitney Biennale, MoMA PS1, Art Dubai, The Vuitton Foundation in Paris, Public Art Fund, CLEARING and The Kitchen in New York. Her animated series, 2 Lizards, a collaboration with director Orian Barki, premiered on Instagram during Spring 2020 and was described by The New York Times as “hypnotic…deploying a blend of documentary structure and animation surrealism…both poignantly grounded in actual events and also soothingly fantastical” and its animated protagonists “art stars.” (Jon Caramanica, April 2020)
Image Credit: Yael Malka
- Year2017
- Runtime19 minutes
- CountryMorocco, United States
- DirectorMeriem Bennani
South West Asia and North Africa, there are historical records of women’s cinema since the 1920s. However, a lack of state funding for archival projects, as well as factors such as conflict and war, mean that we often watch these films through reading about them. The films themselves are inaccessible, or more often damaged or lost.
Feminist history is subversive, and often excluded from mainstream historiographies. Since the 1970s, many women have made films about archiving practice, or their own cultural histories which have been made absent from popular imagination. In more recent times, digital technology has become a mode of reconstructing stories in the absence of archival material, as well as a tool to undertake more ambitious restoration projects.
This film series includes a cult-classic from the archives, an essay film exploring the nature of archiving, and three experiments in transmission; celluloid, CGI and the mosalsalat. They are examples of imagining otherwise, in a region where feminist histories remain on the margins.
— Róisín Tapponi
Curated by Róisín Tapponi, the Founder of Habibi Collective, SHASHA Movies, ART WORK Magazine, and Independent Iraqi Film Festival (IIFF).
Co-presented by ArteEast and Anthology Film Archives, this series is part of the legacy program “Unpacking the ArteArchive,” which preserves and presents over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. In addition to the in-person, theatrical screenings at Anthology, the series will be presented on artearchive.org from February 4 -13.
Online Film Program:
THE NOUBA WOMEN OF MOUNT CHENOUA, Assia Djebar, Algeria,1977, 115 min
GHARIBA, Meriem Bennani, Morocco/U.S., 2017, 19 min
A FEELING GREATER THAN LOVE, Mary Jirmanus Saba, Lebanon, 2017, 99 min
KHTOBTOGONE, Sara Sadik, France, 2021, 16 min
ARCHIVE FEVER: WOMEN’S CINEMA FROM SOUTH-WEST ASIA AND NORTH AFRICA will also be screening onsite at Anthology Film Archive (NYC):
- Assia Djebar
- THE NOUBA WOMEN OF MOUNT CHENOUA
- February 4 at 7:30 PM
- ARCHIVE FEVER: SHORT FILM PROGRAM
- February 7 at 7:30 PM
- Mary Jirmanus Saba
- A FEELING GREATER THAN LOVE
- February 9 at 7:30 PM
For more info go to www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
GHARIBA, Meriem Bennani, Morocco/U.S., 2017, 19 min
Arabic with English subtitles
A playful and moving portrait of some women in Morocco. Evoking reality television, home video, and ethnographic film, its visual language is at once intimate and whimsical, with the director’s digital manipulations by turns amplifying and undermining her subjects’ self-presentations. Bennani’s women discuss love and romance, dating and friendship, loneliness and community, all set against the terror of aging.
Bio: Meriem Bennani (b. 1988 in Rabat, Morocco) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Juxtaposing and mixing the language of reality TV, documentaries, phone footage, animation, and high production aesthetics, she explores the potential of storytelling while amplifying reality through a strategy of magical realism and humour. She has been developing a shape-shifting practice of films, sculptures and immersive installations, composed with a subtle agility to question our contemporary society and its fractured identities, gender issues and ubiquitous dominance of digital technologies. Bennani’s work has been shown at the Whitney Biennale, MoMA PS1, Art Dubai, The Vuitton Foundation in Paris, Public Art Fund, CLEARING and The Kitchen in New York. Her animated series, 2 Lizards, a collaboration with director Orian Barki, premiered on Instagram during Spring 2020 and was described by The New York Times as “hypnotic…deploying a blend of documentary structure and animation surrealism…both poignantly grounded in actual events and also soothingly fantastical” and its animated protagonists “art stars.” (Jon Caramanica, April 2020)
Image Credit: Yael Malka
- Year2017
- Runtime19 minutes
- CountryMorocco, United States
- DirectorMeriem Bennani